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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28318 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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They feel unwelcome in the country of their birth because they are a different people and they don't have a nation for themselves.

Yet, Tajiks in Uzbekistan feel themselves totally welcome in a nation made up by the Russians (Uzbeks aren't themselves even Uzbeks). Countless minorities feel welcome in America from Sicilians, to Lebanese, to Irish, and so on. Why not blacks?

I don't know why not. Not really, not fully. I'm more talking about recognizing the world as it is more than explaining why the world is as it is.

So I guess the question for you is - what constitutes 'a different people'?

You could go for a race- or biology-based definition, or even just an appearance-based definition. African-Americans are a different people in a way that excludes them from the American polity because they have dark skin or African heritage, whereas, say, Italians are not. Personally I think this argument would be weak; you have to start making some really arbitrary distinctions around different populations, particularly if you start considering East Asians or Middle Easterners or Indians, all of whom seem to have been included in America much more successfully.

Probably a more fruitful approach would be to emphasise culture? You could argue that African-Americans, and specifically legacy African-Americans (so e.g. a first-generation immigrant from Ghana or Nigeria is not included) have, for contingent historical reasons, formed their own insular culture separate from and perhaps hostile to the wider American culture? Put this way the solution is not to get rid of all black people but rather to encourage the dismantling of this culture and the rehabilitation of African-Americans into a more positive culture - think of the conclusions of the Moynihan Report, and a strain of conservative activism around this area ever since.

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